Haast. — On a Skeleton of Megaptera lalandii. 215 



no measurement of the animal in the flesh could be taken. Allowing for 

 the intercartilage of the vertebrae, the animal had probably a total length 

 of 30 feet. The skull measures 7 feet 8 inches in length, with a greatest 

 width across the ossa zygomatica of 5 feet. 



The animal was evidently a young one, all the plates of the vertebrae 

 and the epiphyses of both extremities of the pectoral limb being still 

 unanchylosed. I counted 318 plates of baleen on each side of the jaw. 



It is short, has the usual falcate form, is of a uniform black colour, and 

 is edged with thick bristles. Beginuing at the gape it increases rapidly in 

 size, so that the sixtieth plate is 4f inches broad at the base, and 13i inches 

 long, with a length of the bristles at the tip of 2 inches. This size it 

 maintains for about 150 plates till to the hundredth plate from the snout, 

 when it begins to diminish in size, so that at the sixtieth plate it is only 10 

 inches high and 3f inches broad at the base. It still continues to become 

 gradually smaller till the twentieth plate is reached, when it rapidly 

 decreases in size. The number of vertebrae of which the 7 cervical 

 are all free is — 7 cervical, 13 dorsal, 10 lumbar, 21 caudal : total 51. 

 We possess, however, 19 caudal vertebrae only, the two last, and, accord- 

 ing to my informant, very small vertebrae having been lost during the 

 transmission of the skeleton. There are only 13 dorsal vertebrae instead 

 of 14, as usually occurring in them, but I am certain that one pair of ribs 

 is neither wanting nor could I find any articulation on the twenty-first or 

 first lumbar vertebra, which in every respect resembled the following or 

 second lumbar. Van Beneden and Gervais, on page 127 of their " Osteo- 

 graphie des Cetacees," state, when speaking of the northern humpback, 

 Megaptera boo])s, "II y a des squelettes a treize cotes, mais Ton peut 

 supposer, qu'il y a une qui manque." In view of the occurrence of a 

 similar deficiency in the humpback of the southern hemisphere where 

 according to the same authors the number of the dorsal vertebrae is 14, the 

 same as in M. hoops, we have to admit that the number varies between 

 13 and 14. The number of lumbar vertebrae is given as 9. However, I 

 failed to find in the tenth or following vertebra, which ought to be taken as 

 the first caudal, any sign of a hypapophysis for the articulation of the first 

 chevron bone ; it resembled in this respect entirely the foregoing ninth 

 lumbar. The space for this articulation in the next or eleventh vertebra is 

 marked so very slightly, that I once thought it might also be added to the 

 lumbars. In that case there would have been 11 lumbars and 20 caudal 

 vertebrae. Lilljeborg in his exhaustive memoir on the Scandinavian 

 Cetacea published by the Bay Society amongst the memoirs on the Cetacea, 

 states that Megaptera hoops has 11 lumbo-sacral and 21 caudal vertebrae. 

 He has probably experienced the same difficulty as I had to distinguish 



